I have, in the past, found myself not wanting to try something for fear that I might fail at it. Video games are no exception. In fact, they are probably the prime example in my case. This amuses me, because the first video games I played as a child were what we now call "Nintendo-hard." In the 5 years separating the time we gave away our NES and I finally convinced my mom to buy a PS2, everything had changed about video games. Suddenly, I had little faith in my gaming skills. Instead of attempting to play a frustrating game, I would simply insist I didn't like games of that type; probably more in an effort to convince myself than the person with which I was speaking at the time.

Let's take a moment to explore this, though. It seems to be the case that people often claim to dislike that which they fear. They say they hate something when, in point of fact, they really mean, "I fear that." Moreover, people often fear that which they do not know or understand. I've encountered this reaction many times in my study of foreign languages and cultures. Yet, the fear of potential failure seems to be the quintessential fear of the unknown. A famous philosopher once made the argument that it is more logical to believe in God than not to, because the benefits of doing so outweigh the potential losses of not doing so.

I feel the need, at this point, to stress the difference between the fear of potential failure and truly believing that there is no chance of winning. There are games that I will refuse to play on the basis that I do not believe there is even a remote chance that I could win. This is not a fear of failure so much as a refusal to waste my time. Before you assume that I am just a sore loser, let me give you an example of one of these games:

Smash Bros Brawl
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It, honestly, doesn't matter with whom I play or how many times I do so...The chances of my winning are probably around 0.0000000000000000000000000001%. This, coupled with the fact that there isn't enough of story to keep me interested, usually means that I am not going to volunteer for a round of Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Now, back to the subject at hand: fear of potential failure. For a long time, I would refuse to play a game on the grounds that I might fail. Eventually, I learned to give it a go anyway. I discovered that the fear of potential failure could be outweighed by the hope that I might win. This is one of the main reasons that I have been able to succeed at games like:

Metal Gear Solid


and Mass Effect
.

Third person shooters have often been the most frustrating, while at the same time the most rewarding, for me. I believe this is because it presents challenges for me to overcome. One of the challenges I've had to overcome in these games is getting used to the programming that dictates how the analog sticks control your character. This problem likely stems from the fact that I spent a fair amount of time in high school playing games like Final Fantasy X and Dynasty Warriors 3 & 4. This left me forever needing to invert the Y-axis of any shooters I subsequently tried to play. Shooters like MGS and Mass Effect require much more attention to detail than a typical RPG, as well as a much higher level of dexterity from the player's fingers. This was a battle of will which demanded much patience and persistence on my part.

Perhaps, then, it is less a sense of hope than it is a sense of pride that drives me to succeed in games? I'm certain this must be the case with games like:

Guitar Hero
.

//This reference would make more sense if you had witnessed my unrelenting quest for a perfect score on Guitar Hero the night before my 7:30am Mandarin final. (I got an "A", if you're interested...) It probably didn't help that it was after midnight and I'd had 2 Grande Caramel Macchiatos throughout the day...// But seriously, no game whose controller resembles something made by Fisher Price is gonna kick my ass!

In short, my greatest fear when it comes to gaming has probably always been failure. Luckily, my winning (read:stubborn) personality and supportive (read:other gamer) friends helped me overcome said fear. And remember, there are worse ways to

.